Harvest Time
by Puredeadthingy
Summary: Mature themes. Four seasons and flings in the life of Melanie Beeby.
1. Summertime

**SUMMER**

If it's hot on Earth, it's only pleasantly warm in Heaven. The sun is full but gentle; it's summery enough that Lola and Mel can walk arm-in-arm down main street with smoothies, mango and passionfruit blended with ice, sipping and talking and laughing.

In fact, it's like a perfect Saturday, ones Mel only had a few of back at home. Running around London for the day, and having the time of her short life. She and Lola have pretty much the same taste in guys, and a system is quickly set in place—a nudge means _omigod, look now!_

They sit on a bench and discuss clothes, History Club, Mr. Allbright being a duck. When Lola falls silent, Mel immediately looks over to where she's gazing.

There is the most beautiful boy she has ever laid eyes on. It makes sense he'd be in Heaven—all those times Sky said someone was 'Heavenly', or Karms went on about someone being 'the best-looking thing this side of Heaven' takes on a new meaning. And he looks up and smiles and Lola sighs—for which Mel is glad, because she can't make a sound.

"He's Orlando," Lola tells her later. "Some kind of prodigy. I'm in love with him." She gives a warm little chuckle. "Well. I say I am. Almost every girl here is. He's never had a girlfriend, though. I think he might be gay."

"Pity," Mel replies, her smoothie mere drops of orange-coloured juice now, and she licks the taste of tangy citrus from her lips. But she has a kind of feeling that she'll find out about Orlando, really, once and for all. And he's not gay, in the end.

She exists in a kind of heat-haze with him, only coming back to ground when they're not together. Then, she engages with her friends—and Lola's happy for time spent with her, since Mel plays hard to make up for time spent with Orlando—and there's only one blip, a boy Lola says she knows but Mel doesn't like all that much. The feeling appears to be mutual, so she doesn't worry too much, and enjoys her time with her newfound love. It will last forever and ever, and they do stupid things like sharing ice-cream and picking fruit together.

In the dying dog-days of summer, work beckons him away. Mel understands completely. It doesn't make it hurt any less, and the heat-haze leaves. Everything looks slightly less shimmery now.


	2. Autumn or Fall

**AUTUMN**

Her relationship with Indigo is…volatile. Perhaps they both know she jumped into it as a reaction to losing Orlando. It's messy, and a few times they've embarrassed people with their arguments. The leaves swirl around them with more force, as if shielding their language and raw emotions for any innocent passers-by.

Lola doesn't say much about it, but Mel feels the weight of her disapproval whenever she lets herself out of their shared flat for a date with Indigo. Lola doesn't feel the reassuring weight of his hands at her sides when they break into a park to swing, and he has to help her up over the fence. She may occasionally glance them gazing dreamily at each other at a coffee shop—Indigo having declared smoothies a bit 'immature'—but that's not enough for her. Half the time she waits up for Mel to get back, feeling that she might be needed to console her soulmate after a break-up.

Mel's first argument with Lola is about happiness—about whether Mel is, and Lola's inability to feel it when confronted with the idea of Mel-and-Indigo forever. Indigo lets her stay over at his place that night, and they don't have sex but Mel feels she wouldn't have turned it down if he'd initiated it. They just stayed up half the night talking, and Mel's lids are partly closed most of the way through their conversation. Indigo is effortlessly cool, but Mel has to try—and the next day, even though nothing happened, she's not completely sure how to act. She's a bit jumpy, nervy, and they have the biggest fight she can remember halfway between his place and the Ambrosia district.

He screams that she never seems to be fully there with him, and accuses her of still pining after Orlando. She rolls her eyes, intending to walk away from him, to tell him it's over, and then he makes a grab for her arm.  
Nobody is allowed to tell her when she can walk away.  
She raises her hand, honest-to-god thinking she'll slap him, and a hand catches her wrist.

They've attracted a crowd. Mel blushes, hard, and runs from the place. She doesn't see Indigo again. The shimmer has faded entirely from the streets as the angel girl's trainers slap the cobblestones and splash into puddles, as Mel races home.


	3. Cold Winter

**WINTER**

Nobody's speaking about it, but as far as Mel's concerned, everyone's thinking it. It's not her imagination that Miss Dove is less keen to have her around, that it takes longer to get served in Guru, that Michael is not on hand so much anymore to offer advice.

Lola is still Lola, but less so. Her inner light seems dimmed when Mel is around, and Mel takes to sneaking out of Heaven, away from the suffocating scent of lilacs. It feels good to completely tear herself away from responsibilities, where she can't even guarantee she will help. Star is dead, now.

Every time a mission goes badly, she flees to Earth. There's one after Park Hall…Mel crashlands into sub-Saharan Africa, at twilight, fighting off the insects. Reclining beneath a dried-up tree, she allows herself to mope.

Mel realises that this isn't exactly a stellar idea when a demon happens upon her. He has a weapon, and she is very aware of her relative un-armed-ness. The remarkable happens. He tells her there's something in her he's never seen in any other girl before, and he puts his thin stiletto dagger aside.

Their courtship is all the more magical because it's so forbidden. He never shows up with new scars, but more and more richly attired, and if he has a kind of sadness in his eyes it's always from some sort of noble cause.

Mel has some measure of sorrow around her now too. She can't seem to gather her angelic inner self even for a moment, and Helix being offline so persistently leaves her cold and empty. Rufio anticipates her moods, hugs her close to him, and seduces her with promises of doing good quickly.

So entranced, she follows him. He says she might want to choose a new name, to symbolise a new beginning, but her brain is fogged from the crossing. Stupidly-her tongue feels clumsy in her mouth as she says it-she says she'll stick with her old name, for the time being. After all, Heaven wasn't all bad. There was Lola, and Reuben. Michael is too painful to think of.

That night is the first night since she's known him that he turns cruel. He hits her across the face and she doesn't cry immediately. He smirks. Her own heart freezes over the coming months. She is still empty and alone, but she doesn't much care anymore.


	4. Spring Awakening

**SPRING**

It's not quite a mission, but she goes anyway. Ribs still aching from the night before, descends into the stone hall expecting more of the same, on another level of Hell. But it's quickly established that, though this place can look gloomy, it's not quite as bad. It's only Scotland. Mel encounters idealism again and it makes her smile and want to cry at the same time—it reminds her so of Lola.

But Lola isn't here. She doesn't see anybody she knows until four days after her arrival in this strange place with its fields of Asphodel, when she runs into the boy Lola knew back in Heaven, the one who was on the fringe of their friendship and resented it a bit, or seemed to. He tells her in no uncertain terms that he wants her out of here. But though she tries, she can't open up a portal; she can't imagine herself back in Hell. It's as if the universe is telling her to stay here, on this recon, this request from her masters.

Something in her thaws and slips then, and she rushes towards him, touching his arm. She's shocked at how easily she does that—of course she knows things have changed since she left for Hell, but she didn't think they'd changed that much. That Rufio was that cruel.

Of course, Brice doesn't know the amount of sway Rufio holds over her still. She takes care to hide her bruises from him, and the other angels they meet. It's a hotspot for Earth Angels, apparently, and she should have been the cat amongst the pigeons. But she keeps herself to herself, and sometimes Brice visits. She wears long-sleeved tops and a hoodie. They ask her if she's carrying on as a freelancer for Hell, and although she tries to answer she doesn't want anybody to know just yet how fickle she can be. She shames herself sometimes.

But the night after that, and the night after that, she smiles before she goes to sleep. The lump of hurt thaws out every time someone speaks to her, and whenever somebody smiles Mel just about goes into spasms of delight. She got a room, somehow—bare, of course, a bit of a dump, and animals won't go near her, but she tells herself it's a sort of holiday from her job, and doesn't think about returning to work too much.

She'd forgotten how much she liked to play. Brice is no Lola, of course, he's not in tune with how she's feeling, but when she tags along to some disco the other angels go to he offers to dance with her when she doesn't really know anybody, and he introduces her to his friends. Mel feels slightly less of an outcast in a place where everyone's fucked up once or twice.

And his hand touches hers. Occasionally, when they sit near each other. Mel thought it was just a mistake, at first, but his skin brushes hers over and over, melting away the ice inside her very slowly.


End file.
